


he's my brother

by fantasticfours



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 12:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13190262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasticfours/pseuds/fantasticfours
Summary: Tim just wants to eat breakfast. Instead, he finds himself caring for a sick younger brother.





	he's my brother

**Author's Note:**

  * For [renecdote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/gifts).



Tim has finally finished up with the case he was working on. He feels like death warmed up – he hasn’t slept since… since he started it, probably.

He probably hasn’t eaten in that time, either.

With that thought he starts making his way to the kitchen of Wayne Manor. It’s midnight, so he’s careful not to wake Alfred, who’ll probably wake up and cook for him no matter the time if he finds out how long it’s been since he’s had a meal.

He’s almost down the hallway when he hears coughing from Damian’s room. As soon as it’s started though, it stops, so the chances are that he’d imagined it. He keeps on walking down the hallway, thinking about what he’ll eat.

Ramen sounds good and easy, and probably won’t wake Alfred. Ramen it is.

~~  
By the time Tim wakes up the next day, Bruce is at work and Alfred has gone to do the shopping. He’s alone in the Manor with Damian.

This… won’t be fun.

He’s on his way to get breakfast when he hears it again. This time he’s sure he hasn’t imagined it – especially when it keeps on going.

Damian’s sick.

Tim’s the only one in the house.

With a sigh, he cautiously opened the door and pokes his head through.

“Damian? You okay?”

Damian opens his mouth but as he tries to speak, he starts coughing again. Tim is sure he’s feeling terrible.

Apparently Damian disagrees though, because as soon as he stops coughing he spoke. “Tt. I am _fine_ , Drake. Go away.”

Tim shakes his head and walks over to the bed where Damian’s lying – that was his first clue, Damian’s _never_ still in bed at this time, he’s usually the first one up – and puts a hand to Damian’s head.

He swats at it half-heartedly, and Tim sighs. He was burning up.

“What was that for?” Damian’s words slur together, only succeeding in making Tim worry more.

“To check your temperature. I think you’ve got a fever?” he asks more than says. He knows next to anything about illnesses, which is probably… not smart, given that he’s missing a spleen.

In fact, just being in a room with Damian right now probably isn’t smart, _given that he’s missing a spleen_.

“We have fever medicine, right? Alfred would have that?” Tim says more to himself than anything. When Damian doesn’t respond, he just nods to himself and walks to go find it.

It takes him a few minutes; he finally found medicine behind the bathroom mirror. He’s then confronted with the fact that he knows _absolutely nothing_ about medicine, either.

He takes out his phone and with a sigh, types ‘fever medicine’ into Google.

“Tylenol,” he says out loud. “Ok, we have Tylenol… no, no, no, yes!” With a shout he finds it, before starting on his way to Damian’s room. On his way, though, he realises something else and makes a detour.

When he walks into Damian’s room, it’s to the sound of raspy laughter – and then coughing. Once he’s finished, Damian finally comments on what he was laughing about.

“ _What_ are you wearing?”

“Like it? It’s one of Jason’s masks, he left it here a while ago.”

Damian’s quiet for a second. “Why are you wearing it?”

Tim glares at Damian, and hopes the spirit of it gets through the mask. He doesn’t know how Jason does it. “I don’t have a spleen, idiot.”

For a second, Damian looks almost _scared_. Then he’s pushing at Tim. “Then get out of here, Drake! I’m _sick_ and you already have a compromised immune system…”

Tim stays anyway. It’s nice to know that Damian does care about him, even just a little, but he’s starting to realise that _he_ cares about Damian too – and he can’t just leave him like this alone.

He just shrugs. “I’m pretty sure this mask filters the air anyway. Now, take your medicine.”

As Damian’s quiet, Tim takes out his phone again. This time he Googles ‘how to treat a fever’.

Once this is over he’s going to read up on illnesses and the like. He can’t bear to be this uninformed if anything happens unexpectedly.

“It says here you should drink a lot of water,” he says Damian’s way. “I’ll go get you some.”

Damian looks at him with wide eyes, and Tim feels bad for him – which, he never thought he’d even think about Damian.

“I’ll be right back, promise.”

He walks back to the kitchen, filling up a glass of water. He’s almost out the door when he stops, reaching into the fridge and taking out a jug to bring with him.

Tim opens the door to Damian’s room and hands him the glass of water. “Drink it,” he then says with a glare. He knows it won’t accomplish anything – the kid’s dad is _Batman_ , for god’s sake – but it makes him feel better about doing something.

He takes another look at his phone, before sighing and turning back to Damian. “It says that you should have lots of bed rest, which I guess you are now. Or does it mean sleep? I don’t know…” The last couple of sentences are muttered to himself. “Maybe you should sleep to be safe.”

Damian raises an eyebrow from his bed, and Tim rolls his eyes. _“Sleep_ , brat. I’ll stay right here.”

Then he realizes he’s still sitting on the bed, and moves into one of the chairs near the door. “I meant right _here_. I always forget about the spleen…”

Damian nods and closes his eyes, and Tim feels almost weird about how he _trusts_ him to make sure he’s okay. Maybe the relationship between the two of them wasn’t as bad as he had thought it was.

That’s the last actual thought he has before he too closes his eyes, and then there’s nothing until he wakes up again to footsteps.

His first thought is that it’s Bruce.

He’s proven wrong though, when he opens his eyes and sees Dick in the doorway. When he sees that Tim’s awake, Dick walks in and ruffles his hair before giving him a hug.

“So, Damian was sick, huh?”

Tim just hummed in agreement.

“And you helped him?”

This time he nodded. Dick smiled happily, and hugged him again.

“See! You guys do love each other, I knew it,” he says into Tim’s hair. Then he starts whispering about something else that Tim doesn’t quite hear – he’s tuned him out by now. He closes his eyes again, and falls asleep to his older brother’s voice, in his younger brother’s room.

This was _so_ not how he thought his day would end.

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas!! 
> 
> [tumblr](https://bisexual-jason-todds.tumblr.com/)


End file.
